Andy Murray’s victory at Wimbledon had a significant positive effect for the Formula 1 yesterday, with the German Grand Prix recording what is believed to be the highest viewership ever for the race, and also the highest of 2013, overnight ratings show. Both programmes were influenced by Murray’s victory in the ratings, therefore there will be more disclaimers than usual to this blog post.

Starting off with Murray, and his victory in the Wimbledon final peaked with a massive 17.30 million viewers (79.6% share) at 17:30. The large peak meant that the live race had more competition than usual, but on the other hand BBC’s highlights programme was getting a huge lead-in. The match climbed from 6.9 million viewers (56.8% share) at 14:00 to 12.5 million viewers (76.5% share) at 16:00 before reaching 17.3 million at 17:30. Whilst obviously those figures are mouth watering compared to the Formula 1, it did mean that the race itself on Sky wasn’t in the eye of the storm.

Despite this, and the hot weather across the country, Sky Sports F1’s race programme from 11:30 to 16:30 averaged 662,000 viewers (6.7% share). I’ll be honest here. I was expecting much lower than that, but the fact is that the race averaged 1.28 million (11.8% share) and peaked with 1.45 million (15.8% share) at 13:15 is something that I think Sky will be very happy with. Given the circumstances, the programme could easily have collapsed. The collapse itself came after the race, figures quickly dived under 1 million, and went under 100,000 viewers at 15:30. Comparing it with Monaco is an odd ball because of the red flag period which inflated the programme average, but comparing yesterday with Bahrain and we see that yesterday’s figures were higher than Bahrain!

– Bahrain: 656,000 (6.1%), race average: 1.18m, peak: 1.29m (12.0%)
– Germany: 662,000 (6.7%), race average: 1.28m, peak: 1.45m (15.8%)

The Sky figures are, again, down on last year, but last year’s German Grand Prix was free to all Sky and Virgin Media customers which should be noted. If Sky were happy, I imagine BBC’s F1 team were more happier looking at their figures this morning.

BBC’s highlights programme averaged 5.15 million viewers (31.2% share) from 18:00 to 19:30. Benefiting from Murray? Absolutely. But in the TV world you win some and you lose some. Everything that could have gone their way yesterday did. Murray got to the final, won in three sets and provided the F1 team with a very healthy audience. They were also lucky, another set and the F1 highlights would have been consigned to BBC Two, and I’d probably be writing ‘record low’ instead of record high. The breakdown looks a bit odd, in that the peak was recorded in the first 5 minutes (7.59 million). But ratings settled down in the high 4 million’s as the race highlights came to their conclusion about 19:10. Unsurprisingly, it is the highest rating for a highlights programme since this contract came into effect.

German Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2002 – 2.56 million
2003 – 2.91 million
2004 – 2.91 million
2005 – 3.14 million
2006 – 2.06 million
2007 – no race
2008 – 3.47 million
2009 – 4.17 million
2010 – 4.17 million
2011 – 4.41 million
2012 – 3.18 million / 3.53 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
2013 – 5.81 million / 5.96 million

Just as the record lows are counted, so are the record high’s. Luck was on F1’s side yesterday. It also begs the question of what BBC do next if Wimbledon and the Grand Prix clash again. After looking at today’s figures and comparing them with last year’s British Grand Prix figures, there’s a big argument for BBC deciding to take up the highlights only choice of whatever race falls on this date next year. I honestly think they will… unless it is Silverstone. In theory, they could just screen highlights of the British Grand Prix, but I cannot see any such move going down well. Hopefully the calendar does not have Britain clashing with the Wimbledon final, as there may be some big decision making to do.

The 2012 German Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.

The controversy surrounding yesterday’s British Grand Prix did not put viewers off, with the race climbing to a peak of 5.98 million viewers, overnight viewing figures show. It is the second highest peak of the season, marginally behind the Malaysian Grand Prix at its peak.

BBC One’s race programme from 12:10 to 15:30 averaged 3.72 million viewers, a 35.3 percent share. In the equivalent slot, Sky Sports F1 averaged 588,000 viewers, a 5.5 percent share. The full Sky programme, from 11:30 to 16:30 averaged 443,000 viewers. The combined average is therefore 4.32 million viewers, down significantly on 2010 and 2011:

British Grand Prix – Official Ratings
2002 – 3.40 million
2003 – 3.13 million
2004 – 3.63 million
2005 – 2.92 million
2006 – 2.18 million
2007 – 3.85 million
2008 – 4.53 million
2009 – 4.21 million
2010 – 4.80 million
2011 – 4.94 million
2012 – 3.60 million / 3.75 million (using ‘35 percent theory‘)
2013 – 4.16 million / 4.31 million

Both BBC One and Sky Sports F1 peaked at 14:30. BBC One peaked with 5.12 million viewers (43.7%) with Sky peaking with 860,000 (7.3%), combining to make 5.98 million viewers, a massive 51 percent share. The ratio of viewers for both average and peak is broadly similar, 86 percent for BBC with 14 percent for Sky. Again, as we have seen in the past, the majority of the gains during the race came from BBC’s broadcast, with Sky only increasing 110,000 viewers between race start and chequered flag. For me, that shows why Formula 1 needs to stay free to air as the terrestrial channels currently do a better job of attracting a casual audience than a dedicated channel.

Regarding the peak, it is not unusual for the British Grand Prix to peak with over a 50 percent share though, whilst the 5.98 million combined peak is great, it should be noted that it is marginally lower than 2008’s peak of 6.02 million and down significantly on 2010 and 2011’s peak which were in the 6.7 million region. I’m not surprised to see a drop compared with 2010 and 2011, as the weather was dry and warm across the country yesterday, fairly similar to the conditions that the 2009 race was held in.

It will be interesting to see how the German Grand Prix does this weekend, as temperatures are expected to dip into the 30’s, which could hurt the Formula 1 significantly, although it is weekends such as this one where the BBC One highlights programme will help rather than hinder the figures.

The 2012 British Grand Prix ratings report can be found here.